Hundreds of Iraqi Yazidis flee to Turkey

Hundreds of people from Iraq's Yazidi community have fled to Turkey after jihadists took over large swathes of territory in northern Iraq, Turkish officials said on Thursday. An attack by the Islamic State (IS) group at the weekend sparked a mass exodus from the northern part of Iraq including the town of Sinjar, where most of the population is made up of the Yazidi minority. A Turkish foreign ministry official described the flight as a ‘human tragedy’.  ‘It is not possible for Turkey to remain indifferent to this. We will fulfil our responsibility,’ the official said. Another government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said hundreds of Yazidis had entered Turkey since Wednesday. ‘They have been accommodated by the local authorities in a housing complex for earthquake victims in the town of Silopi near the Iraqi border’. The Yazidi are a closed community that follows an ancient faith rooted in Zoroastrianism and are referred to by jihadists as ‘devil worshippers’, according to AFP.